When writing Rebuilding Rails, I noticed that the good-progress weeks were always the ones where I did something that viscerally bothered me. So far that trend just keeps on going. I suspect it will for a long time.

This has been a good month.

I'm now lifting weights. Only for, like, two weeks, but I'm already noticing that my workouts feel a lot better, even the short ones. So apparently that's a good thing. I'm mentioning it here more to get accountability than to brag. So you should totally ask if you see me, "hey, are you still lifting weights?" If I think you will, I'm way less likely to stop.

I finally signed up for an actual monthly expense for the business. It's not even for Rebuilding Rails, it's for my next product, which will be about deploying Rails apps and using all those newfangled deploy tools you're supposed to (Chef, Vagrant, Librarian, AWS and many more.) But, like, with minimal pain. You should see the prototype, it's actually pretty darn cool. It'll be even cooler by the time I'm charging a lot of people money for it.

Have I mentioned that I'm getting way more stomach acid happening than a $7.00 monthly expense is actually worth? I've been thoroughly paranoid about not signing up for any expenses that could swamp the profit of my product, which is a habit that eventually catches up to you. No, seriously, if I have to pay $500 or more to make a product that should make $10,000+, I just need to DO that.

My stomach is having none of it, but it's been overruled.

I have purchased pretty ebook templates in hopes that my next book will not look like crap. Except now I'm convinced people will consider me a Real Author rather than a Hapless Engineer That Sometimes Writes Shit and expect me to know something about, like, laying out books and possibly even non-eye-searing color schemes. Urgh.

This, too, is not my stomach's favorite.

I am, in general, comporting myself like I Do This Kind of Thing (i.e. making and selling products.) It feels weird, expensive, and like I will totally crash and burn on this, wiping out all previous products and leaving me with a bunch of classes and (billed-monthly) services that are then a reminder of my failure.

On the plus side, actual measurable progress is pretty good. So there's that.